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University of Edinburgh, School of Law
The Europeanisation of Citizenship in the Successor States of the Former Yugoslavia
(CITSEE)
War, Gender and Citizenship in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia
Oliwia Berdak
The Europeanisation of Citizenship in the Successor States of the Former Yugoslavia
(CITSEE)
CITSEE Working Paper Series 2013/32
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
ISSN 2046-4096
© 2013 Oliwia Berdak
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requires the consent of the authors.
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Published in the United Kingdom
The University of Edinburgh
School of Law
Old College, South Bridge
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Scotland, UK
www.citsee.ed.ac.uk/working_papers
This work was supported by funding from the CITSEE project (The Europeanisation
of Citizenship in the Successor States of the Former Yugoslavia), based at the
University of Edinburgh, UK. CITSEE is funded by the European Research Council
under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme, ERC Grant no. 230239,
and the support of the ERC is acknowledged with thanks.
For information about the Project please visit the project website at
www.citsee.ed.ac.uk
CITSEE WORKING PAPER SERIES 2013/32
1
War, Gender and Citizenship in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia
Oliwia Berdak, University of Edinburgh1
Abstract
This paper compares the position of veterans of the Yugoslav Wars 1991-1995 in
Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in order to explore the interaction
between war, gender and citizenship. In many wars of the last two centuries, an
expansion of rights frequently followed a conflict, although that process did not
proceed uniformly or equally. The comparison of post-war compensation in BiH,
Croatia and Serbia reveals highly varied and gendered outcomes for citizenship. The
fragmented nature of the war and its armies has led to multiple narratives about the
war, influencing subsequent claims for veteran entitlements. The results for veterans
who all participated in the same conflict have been very different depending on
which army they joined, and which war narrative prevailed in their place of
residence. This war was masculinised in discourse and practice, creating gendered
post-war social citizenship in the cases where the citizen-soldier has been rewarded.
Keywords:
Citizenship, gender, war, military duty, compensation
1. Introduction
Between one and one and a half million combatants fought in the Yugoslav Wars
between 1991-1995.2 Some entered the war as conscripts, professionals and
volunteers in the Yugoslav National Army (Jugoslavenska narodna armija – JNA)
and its remnants. Others joined the newly formed national armies, police forces,
semi-criminal paramilitaries and groups organised locally to defend a particular
town. After the wars ended, most were de-mobilised. Nevertheless, they continue to
be present in the public eye as veterans honoured during annual war
commemorations, as protesters demonstrating against cuts to military pensions and
entitlements or in the occasional flare-ups of violence with the use of weapons
acquired during the war. Interest in the veterans has also been shared by the
scholarly community, with a few studies exploring men’s motivations for joining up,
their social position and political activism as veterans as well as their role in political
reconciliation. However, with the exception of Bašić (2004), who compares personal
war narratives of former soldiers from all sides, most existing research on this topic
focuses on one of the three countries only: Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (Gregson,
2000; Bojicic-Dzelilovic, 2004; Bougarel, 2006 and 2007; Popić and Panjeta, 2010),
1 Oliwia Berdak, CITSEE Research Fellow, School of Law. E-mail: [email protected]. 2 Referred to from now onwards as the Yugoslav Wars.
CITSEE WORKING PAPER SERIES 2013/32
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Croatia (Fisher, 2003; Žunec, 2006; Berdak, 2012; Pupavac and Pupavac, 2012) and
Serbia (Grujić, 2006; Milićević, 2006). Perhaps more surprisingly, no research
discusses the combatants in relationship to citizenship, even though military service
is often deemed to be the ultimate citizen duty. This paper seeks to fill this gap,
exploring varieties in post-war compensation of the citizen-soldier between these
countries and its impact on gendered social citizenship.
There is an intimate link between citizenship and war, with the identity of a
warrior-citizen (Isin, 1997) or citizen-soldier (Turner, 2001) appearing in most
citizenship frameworks. When citizenship emerged as a notion defining the post-
revolutionary French nation, it did so amidst discussions of mutual obligations
between the state and its citizens. One of these obligations included conscription,
which was implemented in 1793 to protect the French Republic from both internal
and external enemies. Thus, who could and who had to be in the army also
demarcated the boundaries of the emerging nation-state (Tilly, 1995). Citizenship in
this context was, however, also very much a site of contestation of rights, since
military involvement could be used to demand benefits from the state. Indeed,
military service has been used ever since by oppressed and disenfranchised
minorities as a route to 'first-class citizenship' (Krebs, 2006). In this way, particularly
the wars of the 19th and 20th century have seen some expansion of citizenship, as
increasingly mass mobilisation expanded political, civic and social citizenship for
veterans amongst new social groups. Of course, this expansion was neither universal
nor linear. Women in particular often comparatively lost out as a result of such
arrangements, so it is imperative to consider their position when studying post-war
citizenship (Ruddick, 1983; Enloe, 1983 and 1990; Yuval-Davis, 1997).
The role of this paper is twofold: to highlight how compensation of the citizen-
soldier determines gendered social citizenship in the war’s aftermath and to show
how that compensation itself is dependent on the state and its ideology. Gender is a
very important factor which influences who gets what after the war. The
masculinisation of citizenship as embodied by the figure of the citizen-soldier means
that women are often not included in post-war compensation schemes, which
frequently enhance social rights for the veterans. However, gender is not the only
determinant of post-war social outcomes. What the comparison of BiH, Croatia and
Serbia illustrates so well is that the post-war expansion of social citizenship relies on
other factors as well: the ideological narratives of the war and the relative strength of
the state. Many scholars have remarked on the necessary role of the state in
guaranteeing social citizenship rights (Bauman, 2005). Veteran entitlements go even
further in this regard, betraying the complete state-centricity of these specific
citizenship provisions. The state or, as the case of BiH shows, even a powerful sub-
state entity, is indispensable as the authority on which claims can be made and which
props up the rhetoric of a just war. However, even where such a state is there to pay
back its citizen-soldiers, this settlement is likely to come under increased pressure in
times of globalisation and liberalisation, highlighting the overall weakness of the
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modern state, especially when compared with states that emerged victorious after
the Second World War.
The first part of this paper introduces some discussions about the relationship
between war and citizenship. These are then related to the specific context of the
Yugoslav Wars and their aftermath. I show here how the fragmented nature of the
war and its armies has led to multiple narratives of the war, influencing subsequent
claims for veteran rights and post-war compensation. I also demonstrate how this
war was masculinised in discourse and practice, meaning that where the citizen-
soldier has been rewarded, this has effectively created gendered post-war social
citizenship. In the conclusion I consider what these varieties in post-war
compensation can tell us about the broader notions of citizenship in these countries.
2. War and citizenship
War can have a huge impact on citizenship, changing the boundaries of polities and
expanding or limiting political rights within them. However, in this paper I focus
mostly on the relationship between the expansion of citizenship rights and the
articulation of wartime contribution, since this is where negotiations around
citizenship – who is a good citizen, and what they can get from the state in return for
their sacrifices and support – are most pronounced. As demonstrated in Table 1
below, this negotiation is most clear in the case of military contribution. As
mentioned in the introduction, the beginnings of universal conscription in
revolutionary France coincided with the rhetoric of citizenship and nationalism.
Those most willing to sacrifice their lives for the Republic were to be rewarded with
greater citizenship rights, introducing voting rights for the property-less after the
French Revolution (Tilly, 1995). This logic continued much into the 20th century. In
countries where conscription was introduced in the course of the First and Second
World War, provisions ensuring particular social rights of veterans and their families
were introduced almost simultaneously (Pedersen, 1990; Mettler, 2005). In the case of
the United States, the G.I. Bill, formally called the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of
1944, extended numerous social benefits to the returning Second World War
veterans, including generous education and training benefits, which enabled a huge
population of men to go to university. Considering that of men born in 1920, fully 80
per cent were war veterans, the impact this had on men's social citizenship overall
was enormous (Mettler, 2005, pp. 5-7).
The high rewards and the rhetorical power associated with military
participation have induced many disadvantaged social groups to follow this route to
‘first-class citizenship’, although, as argued by Krebs (2006), the results of the
struggle often depended on a number of factors, including the type of political
regime in place. The results have been particularly ambiguous in the case of women,
whose participation in armed struggles has not always translated into greater
citizenship rights after the cessation of hostilities (Enloe, 1983). The mass-
participation of women during the Second World War in Yugoslavia through the
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Anti-Fascist Women’s Front (Antifašistička fronta žena: AFŽ) and in the Soviet
Union was later used as a justification for extending women’s rights. However, the
situation on the ground was much more nuanced and it is questionable to what
extent women’s participation in battle was more a reflection of different attitudes of
Communists to women and their commitment to women’s emancipation rather than
its cause (Krylova, 2010; Bonfiglioli, 2012).
The primacy of military service above any other form of contribution has
raised questions about the fairness of such an approach which favours men and
duties and activities associated with them. The fact that debates about military
service are often led in universalist, genderless terms is indicative of a wider bias in
the theoretical underpinnings of citizenship. As demonstrated by multiple feminist
scholars, men are the ‘lurking' citizens behind the supposedly universalist
conceptions of citizenship (Lister, 1997; Lister, 2003). After all, if the military service
is the 'ultimate citizenship duty', where does this leave the female half of the
population, often barred from entering combat (Ruddick, 1983; Enloe, 1983 and 1990;
Yuval-Davis, 1997)?
Yet where women have not participated in combat directly, they have
sometimes benefited from the expansion of citizenship following a war. In many
places, women have successfully re-defined war contribution, arguing that the 'home
front' too was indispensable to victory, and demanding rights in return. Moreover,
changes wrought by war-related upheaval have frequently contributed to an
expansion of social rights for both men and women, as demonstrated by the growing
body of literature analysing the relationship between war and the rise of social
welfare (Dryzek and Goodin, 1986; Klausen, 1998; Castles, 2010; Kettunen, 2013;
Obinger and Petersen, 2013; Starke and Obinger, 2013). Although one cannot speak
of a simple causal relationship, a number of factors associated with mass total wars
can be said to have contributed to the development of the welfare state, although
systematic analysis is still lacking (Obinger and Petersen, 2013).
As argued by the British social researcher, Richard Titmuss, wars can serve as
an impetus for national self-reflection and social change, with the Second World War
resulting, for example, in the establishment of the Beveridgian welfare state in the
UK and the expansion of social citizenship (Turner, 2001, p. 191). Of course,
sometimes even just the myth of unity carefully constructed during the war can serve
as a basis for claims of greater solidarity through social welfare (Kettunen, 2013).3
However, even outside of the specific context of the Second World War and its Cold
War aftermath, there are more general war-related factors that could result in a post-
war expansion of social citizenship for the society as a whole. Castles (2010) provides
a good overview of issues such as increased taxation in times of war (which
accustoms the population to a greater tax burden which can then be used to finance
3 This is visible currently in the UK, with the 2013 film by Ken Loach called The Spirit of ‘45 calling for
a return to post-war unity and social solidarity.
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welfare states), increased size of government with greater welfare capabilities or
even preparedness of the population to share risks in face of wartime dangers.
Table 1 War and expansion of citizenship
However, as this paper demonstrates, in the case of the Yugoslav Wars, the situation
is almost reversed. A limited expansion of some social citizenship rights occurred
after the war for specific groups of war veterans, war victims and their families.
Whilst in all three states the society as a whole gained political and civic citizenship
rights associated with liberal democracies, social citizenship rights have been
drastically reduced.4 This is partly because of the comprehensiveness of the previous
system: it would be difficult to eclipse the generous social welfare provisions of
socialist Yugoslavia. The rights-based discourse of social citizenship as originally
defined by T.H. Marshall in 1950 does not fit neatly into this context: any social
welfare designed only to protect individuals from the vagaries of capitalist markets is
likely to be felt lacking, when compared to the previous socialist model centred
around labour ownership. As aptly pointed out by Watson, in the post-socialist
context of transition, ‘relative equality and universal citizenship are the starting point
rather than the stated goal of change’ (2006, p. 1081).
Moreover, unlike after the Second World War, post-Yugoslav states are now
much weaker as institutions and can only offer limited rewards. This seems
contradictory for people who have fought for independence to increase their
4 Still, the full enjoyment of these new political and civic citizenship rights was often dependent on
citizen’s ethnic belonging, especially immediately after Yugoslavia’s break-up. See previous CITSEE
work on the manipulation of citizenship laws to this effect contained in Shaw and Štiks (eds) (2012).
Definition of war
contribution Beneficiaries
Military
Veterans
New rights
- e.g. G.I. Bill after WWII: social
rights
- e.g. voting rights for property-
less after the French Revolution
New groups
- e.g. AFŽ and women in
Yugoslavia after WWII
- ethnic minorities:
political and civic rights
Broader
Society and various social groups
New rights
- Social rights after WWII, e.g. UK
welfare state
New groups
- e.g. voting rights for
women after WWI and
WWII
CITSEE WORKING PAPER SERIES 2013/32
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autonomy and control over a given territory. High expectations associated with
independence and the sacrifices made for it, bolstered by previous experiences of
socialism, do not stand up to reality where, due to pressures from globalisation,
states have increasingly adopted the economic model of competition, privatisation
and individualisation (Stubbs and Zrinščak, 2009). Instead of a wide post-war
expansion of social citizenship, mostly limited targeted benefits have been adopted
in these countries for those who are believed to have contributed most to the defence
of the nation-states: the veterans. However, not all veterans have benefitted equally.
As the following sections of this paper demonstrate, the proliferation of the different
armed forces and a lack of a clear chain of command meant that once the war
finished, it was not clear who owed what to whom for their service. The contested
war narratives and the central role of the state in upholding them have equally
exacerbated these uneven outcomes.
3. The Yugoslav Wars: Masculinisation and fragmentation
This section will explore how huge numbers of men in BiH, Croatia and Serbia were
almost overnight turned from Yugoslav soldier-citizens, expected to defend the
socialist multi-national federation from an external threat, into ethnonational soldier-
citizens. This fragmentation of the Yugoslav state and the JNA has resulted in a
similarly fragmented war narrative across the three states and varied outcomes for
the veterans. I will also demonstrate why speaking of veteran benefits is really
speaking of male benefits. Yugoslav militarism, combined with male conscription
and gendered discourse of citizen duty during the war ensured that these particular
wars were fought almost exclusively by men, with significant consequences for
gendered citizenship.
Scholars have argued that the changed nature of warfare in the last couple of
decades has enabled more women to enter the military. Modernisation and new
military technologies have supposedly made any differences in physical strength less
relevant. Of course, this trend is partly conditioned by the type of warfare, with
greater 'sexual division of labour between men and women in the military' where
there is a strict separation between the battle field and the 'home front' or the 'rear'
(Yuval-Davis, 1997, pp. 95-99). Whilst this condition might have applied in the case
of Yugoslavia – Serbia and Montenegro – and Croatia in later stages of the war, such
a separation hardly existed throughout most of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Considering the violence, including the mass scale of sexual violence, directed at
women in that war, women had a reason to become involved (Kašić, 2002, p. 198;
Žarkov, 2007, pp. 116-142). However, the remasculinisation of the army and the tying
of military duty exclusively with male citizenship in decades following the Second
World War managed to overcome local tradition which saw two million women
involved on the side of the Partisans, with 100,000 recruited into combat units
(Jancar, 1981, p. 144).
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Militarism was embedded deeply into the Yugoslav culture, forming an
integral part of one of its constitutive myths: the united anti-fascist struggle – the
National Liberation War during the Second World War. This myth celebrated both
male and female contribution to victory, but as in many other post-conflict societies,
the supposed gender neutrality of the citizen-warrior did not survive the test of time.
Whilst on paper the figure of borac – fighter – could still be male or female,
commemorative practices and the institutionalisation of the Yugoslav National Army
after the war attached this imaginary mostly to men and masculinity. Those who
stayed actively serving in the JNA were men, soon turning it into an entirely male
force, with women barred from entry.5 Militarisation of masculinity (or in this case
perhaps the masculinisation of the military) was further reaffirmed through the
military service which applied to all men aged 18 and above. The service lasted
between one and three years (depending on the unit, the recruit's educational
background and the historic period – service was shortened after 1952), and there
was no right to conscientious objection (Berdak, 2013). Particularly in more rural
settings, huge parties were thrown to celebrate a man's entry into the military, which
was treated as a symbolic entry into manhood and the wider community (completing
the service was in many places a social prerequisite to marriage).6
Yet as ethnic tensions grew in the early 1990s, the Yugoslav National Army,
that utmost symbol of a united Yugoslav socialist nation, began unravelling,
effectively becoming ‘an army without a state’, as summed up by its last commander
in chief, Veljko Kadijević (1993).7 A real battle soon emerged over the bodies of men,
equating sovereignty, citizenship and the military. As early as summer 1990,
Slovenian recruits started avoiding the JNA mobilisation call, insisting they should
be allowed to serve in their own republic (it was standard practice that recruits
served outside of their home republic) (Marijan, 2008, pp. 417-418). Some of the first
legal challenges to Yugoslavia and the JNA's monopoly of violence in its territory
came from the new constitution adopted by the Republic of Croatia (still legally a
part of Yugoslavia) in December 1990, when Art. 47 shifted the legal responsibility of
citizens for the defence of their country from Yugoslavia to Croatia (Constitution of
the Republic of Croatia, 1990). Thus, Yugoslav male citizens became primarily
Croatian male citizens, and those who did not comply were referred to as bandits. In
this vein, the Serb local paramilitary units which were being established in the
Republic of Croatia in protest at the latter's growing sovereignty were called hajduks
5 There was a short-lived experiment to enable women to perform voluntary military service between
1983 and 1985, but this only lasted between two months and 22 days for women soldiers and six
months for women officers and did not translate into permanent officer careers (Gombač, in Petrović,
2011, pp. 414-415). 6 I am grateful to Professor Wendy Bracewell and Dr Sasha Milićević for bringing my attention to this
point. 7 The fact that the JNA on paper ceased to be attached to a particular state and officially dissolved
(whilst in reality being commanded by Belgrade authorities) meant that its veterans later would not
have a particular authority on which claims to benefits could be made.
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by the Croatian government. The old Ottoman term denoting outlaws and rebels was
used in an attempt to emphasise their illegal and illegitimate status (Žanić, 2007, p.
115).
At the same time, the JNA soon stopped being the army of 'brotherhood and
unity'. Due to a variety of reasons, personal and institutional, by the time large-scale
violence erupted in the Republic of Croatia in the summer of 1991, the JNA 'had
equated protecting Serbs in Croatia with protecting supporters of Yugoslavia'
(Bieber, 2008, p. 320). By autumn 1991, non-Serb officers were mostly purged from
the army. Considering prior Serb domination of the JNA, this basically made it into a
Serbian army (p. 324). After the JNA military campaign in Slovenia between 27 June
and 7 July 1991, desertion only intensified. In response to the limited call-up of the
1st Army in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 20 June 1991, Bosnian Muslim and Croatian
political leaders advised called-up men to 'judge for themselves on the spot whether
it was necessary to join or not' (Backović et al, 2001, p. 331). By early October 1991,
Alija Izetbegović, the President of the BiH Presidency, called upon the citizens not to
respond to the mobilisation call. In his televised 'Message to the Citizens of Bosnia-
Herzegovina', Izetbegović phrased this specifically in the language of citizenship, 'It
is your right and duty as citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina not to respond to the call-up
(...) I call upon you to find the courage to refuse to take part in these evil deeds.
Remember, this is not our war. Let those who want it, wage it. We do not want this
war' (quoted in Tus, p. 58, footnote 13).
Still, in the increasingly nationalist political and media discourse through the
Yugoslav space, Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian men were mostly present as soldiers,
a rhetoric which drew on the Partisan myth and the male civic duty associated with
it (Sofos, 1996; Rener and Ule, 1998; Bracewell, 2000; Mostov, 2000; Kesić, 2002;
Milićević, 2006). In a way reminiscent of many violent conflicts, images used in the
media frequently juxtaposed visions of national male heroes with the vulnerable war
victims – the evocative 'womenandchildren' compound men were supposed to
protect (Enloe, 1990; Senjković, 2002, pp. 143-144). This meant that even as men
avoided being drafted into the JNA, many instead ended up in the newly formed
national armies and local paramilitaries. This process only intensified in Croatia as a
result of the brutal attacks of Serbian paramilitary units, supported by the JNA and
evidenced by the waves of refugees flowing from the attacked areas in the summer
and autumn of 1991. Grassroots mobilisation in the affected areas was followed by
general mobilisation announced in Croatia on 23 November 1991, and it applied to
all men living within the Republic of Croatia, even though the government had
effectively lost control over a third of its territory. By the end of 1991, the Croatian
Army comprised 250,000 men made up of both volunteers and conscripts (Špegelj,
2001, p. 38).
The battle for men was much harder in BiH, where people of different
ethnicities did not live in easily demarcated territories, and where one’s own
ethnicity did not always guarantee support for a particular military force associated
with it. Particularly before the eruption of large-scale violence, that is before spring
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1992, confusion reigned and few men took up arms. From mid-1991, a few volunteer
paramilitary forces were established, mostly associated with the three ethnic parties
in power (Shrader, 2003, pp. 24, 33). However, this soon changed as rivalry ensued
over the legitimacy to mobilise first the territorial defence units (Teritorijalna
odbrana – TO) and later any Bosnian men. First attempts to do so proceeded already
from September 1991, starting in the Serbian dominated city of Banja Luka (Delić,
2007, p. 120). However, which side the local TO units picked frequently depended on
the loyalties of the local political authority (Hoare, 2004, p. 19).
The situation became more acute after a ceasefire was signed in Croatia on 2
January 1992. After that, significant JNA forces, which included a large number of
reservists and new recruits from Serbia, were re-deployed to Bosnia and
Herzegovina, igniting the already tense local situation (Divjak, 2001, p. 155). A
formal decision to suspend military duty for BiH citizens in the JNA was adopted on
13 March 1992 (Delić, 2007, p. 148). However, the JNA forces, increasingly
indistinguishable from the Serbian paramilitaries and the Army of Republika Srpska,
did not cease conscripting men. An official declaration of the state of war by the
government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina came on 20 June 1992,
together with general mobilisation. Although at that point the Bosnian Army was
declared to be the only legitimate army of the multinational state, throughout the
war it became associated more and more only with the Muslim part of the
population (Hoare, 2004, p. 54). As violence spread throughout the country, more
men either mobilised locally to defend themselves or joined one of the existing
armies. By the end of the war in 1995, the three ethnicities had succeeded at
formulating three mostly ethnically 'pure' armies. And these armies were mostly
male: women constituted only approximately 5 per cent of all Croatian forces at the
time of the 1991-1995 war (Bradarić and VLM, 2001, p. n/a). This was even less in the
case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where women amounted to between 2 and 3 per
cent of the Army of Republika Srpska (Srna, 2013, p. n/a). As for the Army of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, at the end of the war, in December 1995, women numbered only
5,360 out of a total force that could have been as large as 260,000 (Shrader, 2003, pp.
22-23; Radio Sarajevo, 2012, p. n/a).
4. Veteran benefits and citizenship
The dual legacies of state and army fragmentation and the militarisation of male civic
duty have to a large degree affected the varied and gendered outcomes for
citizenship in Croatia, BiH and Serbia. The latter factor determined the self-
perception of men who fought in the war, serving as a powerful basis for any claims
on the state. However, as this section will demonstrate with reference to veteran
policies in each of these states, it was the political processes of state and nation-
building that made all the difference, creating powerful war narratives and
correspondent veteran identities or, in the case of Serbia, failing to do so. Whilst
during the war the nationalist leaders of all three ethnicities portrayed the conflict as
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a matter of national survival, the war outcomes challenged these narratives
significantly.
The results for veterans who all participated in the same war have been very
different depending on which army they were a part of, and what narrative about the
war prevailed in their place of residence, highlighting how identity is indeed at the
heart of citizenship debates (Isin and Wood, 1999). In places where the narrative of a
just war prevailed, veterans can draw on it and, as state-builders and protectors,
demand corresponding compensation. They can also mobilise to defend their
benefits and the nationalist narrative about the war. But this relationship goes both
ways: without the state, veteran identity would not exist. For veterans to be able to
claim anything, there must be a state which they can legitimately address. The state
is crucial in constructing the myth of justifiable violence which will be the basis of
these claims.
4.1 Croatia
The Croatian War of Independence, which, with varying degrees of intensity, took
place between 1991 and 1995, is referred to in Croatia as the 'Homeland War'
(Domovinski rat). There is little ambiguity surrounding its aims in the official state
discourse: it was both a defence and a struggle for independence. In that sense,
Croatia is by far the biggest inheritor of the legacy of the National Liberation War.
Here too the war is narrated as an uprising of a united people against the evil
external aggression and occupation (that of Serbia and the disloyal Croatian Serbs).
Its sanctity is protected by the Croatian Constitution, which identifies the 'Croatian
defenders' (branitelji) as victorious in the 'righteous, legitimate and defensive
Homeland War 1991-1995' (Vlada Republike Hrvatske, 2010, p. 1), establishing a
special relationship between the Croatian state and its warrior-citizens. Just like the
Partisans in the past, branitelji, referred to also as heroes (heroji), and knights
(vitezovi), are seen as the creators of the state and have been elevated to a special
citizenship status. An amendment passed by the government in 2010 sanctified the
relationship built during the war between them and the Croatian state. The latter is
now legally obliged to take care of the veterans, as specified here: 'The Croatian state
devotes special efforts for the protection of Croatian defenders, Croatian war
veterans, widows, parents and children of fallen Croatian defenders' (p. 2). This has
translated into benefits given to the Croatian veterans of the 'Homeland War' being
more comprehensive than those given to veterans in Australia, Finland, France,
Israel, South Korea, Germany, Russia, U.S., Slovenia, Spain and the UK, and
encompass financial, medical, housing, educational, employment and tax benefits
(Ferenčak et al, in Žunec, 2006, p. 31).8
8 Specific laws guiding these provisions can be found on the website of the Directorate for the
Defenders, at <http://www.branitelji.hr/klikni> (last accessed 26 March 2013).
CITSEE WORKING PAPER SERIES 2013/32
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The narrative of a just war is closely aligned with that of honourable war duty
of its warriors and determines veterans’ expectations towards the community in
return for this service. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the sacrifice – possibly
leading to a loss of a limb or life – no single reward is ever deemed appropriate.
Socialist Yugoslavia managed to get close, with its generous system of entitlements
and commemorations for the Partisans of the Second World War, setting an
impossible example to follow. Considering the similarities between the narrative of
the ‘Homeland War’ and the National Liberation Struggle, this has shaped
expectations of new generations of veterans as well. As expressed by Boris Beck, a
Croatian journalist and himself a veteran, Croatian veterans would like to be
unambiguous ‘national heroes’ (narodni heroji), like during Yugoslavia, as well as ‘the
society’s conscience’.9
The legacy of the National Liberation War is also visible here in another way:
the comparative inclusiveness of the war myth. Throughout the 1990s, the war was
always portrayed as a united effort of the entire Croatian nation. Although this
narrative effectively excluded the non-ethnically Croatian resident population, it also
allowed for a broader definition of wartime contribution. Women who contributed to
the war as reporters, nurses and teachers could thus demand some recognition for
their role, creating an Association of Women in the Homeland War, which between
2006 and 2009 published six volumes recollecting women's contributions (Berdak,
2010). Still, unlike in the case of the Anti-Fascist Women's Front during the Second
War World, this recognition has not translated into any specific women's citizenship
rights, since rights have been reserved only for the actual defenders – defined as
members of the Croatian Army and volunteer and paramilitary units which were
later incorporated into the state forces. As explained earlier, only 5 per cent of those
were women and even in their case there is some unease about the branitelj label. The
writer, war-time journalist and female veteran Grozdana Cvitan, for example, sees
large differences in the self-perception of male and female veterans. Whilst many of
the former have eagerly taken up the veteran identity, the fact that it has been so
strongly linked to masculinity makes it more difficult for female veterans to define
themselves in that way and claim the associated rights. As she highlights, even the
word branitelj only exists in the male gender.10
Because fighting in the war is perceived as a natural reflection of male civic
duty, this creates a feeling of legitimacy and solidarity amongst the veterans and a
basis for united political action, something that other groups who suffered during the
war are not equally capable of. The veterans are organised in a number of
associations, although according to Grozdana Cvitan many of those are inactive or
semi-legal, signing up people without their consent to gain more power and funds.11
Many organisations are linked to the right-wing party that oversaw the creation of
9 Interviewed by the author on 16 November 2012 in Zagreb. 10 Interviewed by the author on 16 November 2012 in Zagreb. 11 See footnote 9.
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the Croatian state – the Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska demokratska
zajednica: HDZ) – and frequently mobilised by it for political purposes or in defence
of veteran privileges (Fisher, 2003). According to Boris Beck,12 veterans are ‘hostages’
(taoci) of the HDZ. However, this relationship is more nuanced and runs both ways.
The well-organised veteran associations also attempt to keep the various political
parties in check, ensuring the nationalist interpretation of the war is never
threatened, and with it the understanding of their role and their entitlements. As
highlighted by Ozren Žunec who researches Croatian war veterans,13 benefits
attached to the identity of a veteran have basically turned these men into an interest
group, mobilised mostly in defence of their existing rights. They seem to have little
political agenda beyond these demands, and this delegitimizes them as autonomous
political actors. If they try to critique the existing arrangements, the usual answer
they receive is, as Beck says, 'Why is he kicking up a row, he's got his pension'.
As a result, many veterans perceive the payments they receive more like a
political bribe to keep them silent, rather than proper social citizenship, which they
define as a future with secure employment guaranteeing a decent standard of living.
According to Beck, 'The state made a stupid mistake. They gave everyone pensions,
[but] these are young, healthy people, they don't know what to do with
themselves’.14 By not giving them work, HDZ made them into ‘parasites', argues
Tomislav Klauški, a journalist who frequently writes about the Croatian war
veterans.15 According to Klauški, this 'destroyed generations of young people who do
nothing and take pensions'. What these two interviewees are referring to is the poor
state of the economy, and the inability of the state to guarantee full employment. The
dire economic situation, coupled with post-socialist de-industrialisation, war-related
destruction, murky privatizations, mismanagement of the economy by politicians
with vested interests, organised crime, corruption and the recent global financial
crisis have all contributed to high unemployment and poor working conditions. The
Croatian attempt to turn veterans into entrepreneurs lasted only between 1996-1997.
Unfortunately, out of 3,133 loans taken by veterans, only 691 borrowers actually
started repaying the loan five years later, as the law planned. This only resulted in
calls to scrap all the debt (Žunec, 2006, p. 32).
Although it is difficult to arrive at the exact total number of veterans, the
‘register of the defenders’, created by the government between 2004 and 2005 to
divide shares in the Fond of Croatian Defenders of the Homeland War and their
families, contained 489,407 names (Žunec, 2006, pp. 23-24). This number is quite
high for a country of 4.4 million inhabitants and has been a source of controversy
since it was leaked onto the Internet in 2010. In the end, in the effort to stop
speculation and uncover any 'false defenders' (lažni branitelji), the government
published the register online on 19 December 2012 (Poslovni dnevnik, 2012). Whilst the
12 See footnote 8. 13 Interviewed by the author on 16 November 2012 in Zagreb. 14 See footnote 8. 15 Interviewed by the author on 15 November 2012 in Zagreb.
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public has taken to identifying 'false defenders', challenges have emerged not only to
the identity of veterans, but also the extent of their contribution, in particular in the
face the weakening of the state at the forces of globalisation. Veterans’ demands for
greater recognition and associated benefits are increasingly challenged by the rest of
the population, impoverished by years of low economic growth, the recent global
economic crisis, high unemployment and low wages. Especially that from their
perspective, the veterans are clearly privileged. Although one can question whether
an average monthly ‘Homeland War’ veteran pension of HRK5,285 (close to €700 at
the March 2013 exchange rate) in December 2010 (Bađun, 2011) guaranteed a decent
standard of living, it was in fact very close to the average monthly wage of HRK5,351
in December 2010 (Croatian Statistical Office, 2011).
In times of global competition, economic growth based on consumerism and
the scaling back of the welfare state means that national budgets are only able to
support a small group of the poorest as well as those who have literally earned it
through years of waged employment. This is resulting in a shift in the notions of
social contribution: from non-financial to purely financial. Since the veterans fall into
the former category, their financial rewards are increasingly seen as a burden on the
state. For example, Marijana Bađun from the Croatian Institute of Public Finance has
highlighted how Croatian 'Homeland War' pensioners represent only 5% of all
beneficiaries yet take up 15% of all resources.16 Naturally, such discourse creates
resentment amongst the veterans who think that their military contribution should
enable them to live better than those who made no such sacrifices. As summarised by
Grozdana Cvitan, there is now a widespread feeling amongst the veterans that ‘I was
once ready to die for this country, and this country doesn't recognise that I have
nothing'.17 Yet the kind of social citizenship that was offered in socialist Yugoslavia is
no longer accessible.
Of course, there is one group of soldiers here that has lost out entirely in this
conflict, falling in between the cracks of warrior-citizenship. The Serbian rebels who
took up arms against the growing independence of Croatia lost their struggle. Not
having won any territorial autonomy and having failed in their efforts to remain a
part of Yugoslavia or join Greater Serbia, their military involvement has not been
rewarded by anyone. Although this seems logical, it is not the only possible solution,
as will be demonstrated below in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
4.2 Bosnia and Herzegovina
In terms of narrative unity, the conventional story of the Croatian War of
Independence is simple, clearly identifying the aggressors (Croatian Serbs, the
Yugoslav National Army and neighbouring Serbia) and the defenders (those
defending the sovereignty of the Croatian state), and rewarding the latter for their
16 Email correspondence with the author, 2 January 2013. 17 See footnote 9.
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citizen duty. In Bosnia and Herzegovina’s splintered sovereignty established after
the Dayton Peace Agreement, this is far from the case.18 The country’s fragmented
political system has allowed competing war narratives to co-exist. The two main
entities, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS),
define the war differently and accordingly also its heroes and victims. Where there
are attempts to define the war as an act of aggression on a sovereign state of BiH,
these are bitterly contested. For example Rasim Delić, the former JNA general and
later the Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, talks
of a defensive war of BiH 'against Serbian and Croat aggressors, and their helpers
amongst Bosnian Serbs and Croats' (2007, p. 3), a 'classic aggression' (p. 11), put in
the context of 'antifascist and national liberation wars' (p. 15). Yet the armies
associated with the Bosnian Serbs and Croats also frequently portray themselves as
the valiant defenders of their particular ethnic groups, worthy of compensation and
rewards for their wartime losses and sacrifices. For example, one of the laws
regulating veteran entitlements in Republika Srpska targets the ‘Disabled War
Veterans and Families of Soldiers Fallen in the Defensive and Fatherland War of
Republika Srpska’ (Šoštarić, 2012, pp. 49-50; emphasis added).
In practice, this leads to a bizarre situation where even those who fought
against the state are now rewarded or compensated by one of its components. They
are thus all equally established as heroes or victims and rewarded accordingly. Yet
the practices of compensation emphasise ethnic rather than civic belonging and
undermine the Bosnian state. For examples, there are sometimes questions about the
authority that owes compensation to the Bosnian Croat soldiers, who could have
been fighting both in Croatia and in Bosnia in different periods of the conflict, and
therefore can be rewarded by both states. However, even where the Bosnian Croats
were not involved in the ‘Homeland War’ but only fought in BiH, they can still be
rewarded by the Croatian state. A bilateral agreement adopted by Croatia and BiH in
2006 enabled veterans of the Croatian Defence Council (Hrvatsko vijeće obrane) who
are Croatian citizens resident in BiH to be paid by the Croatian state benefits
equivalent to those of Croatian soldiers who served in Croatia proper (Saraljić, 2012,
p. 17).19 This agreement was reached despite the official separation by the Croatian
government of the BiH conflict from the 'Homeland War' and a firm denial of any
military involvement in BiH. Yet clearly military duty and sacrifice in this case have
more of an ethnic nature and can refer to the defence of the Croatian nation rather
than the Croatian state.
The same principle of embracing its ethnic warriors does not apply to Serbia,
which denies any links with Bosnian Serb veterans, who rely for their benefits
exclusively on the sub-state carved out within BiH: Republika Srpska. In the case of
18 The country was effectively split into the autonomous entities of Federation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Republika Srpska and the Brčko District. 19 Eldar Sarajlić details how providing social welfare to ethnic Croatian veterans living in BiH by the
Croatian state reflects the importance of the latter's ethnic citizenship framework in determining
policies of social re-distribution (2012).
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Bosnian Muslims, on the other hand, religion can play a big role in strengthening the
veteran male identity. As highlighted by Bougarel (2006), during the war, Islam was
used to bolster the motivation and the fighting spirit of Bosnian Muslims. As a result,
religious martyrdom came to dominate the remembrance of the war and its fallen
soldiers in that community, centring on the figure of the šehid – martyr. Šehidi and
their families are rewarded by FBiH.
All of these war narratives, whilst essentially contradictory, in practice
reaffirm the figure of the citizen-soldier within BiH as a whole. Both the Federation
of BiH and Republika Srpska separately use a large chunk of their fiscal resources to
provide for veterans and their families, whose numbers are considerable. Like in
Croatia, it is difficult to establish how many veterans there are precisely in BiH, but
according to Tamara Šmidling from the Sarajevo Peace Academy, as many as 80 per
cent of men above the age of 37 could be former combatants.20 The World Bank
places this figure at between 400,000 and 500,000 men (in Bougarel, 2006, p. 479). In
terms of war-related benefits, in 2009 nearly 100,000 war invalids were entitled to
disability benefits (Popić and Panjeta, 2010, pp. 11-12).21 Many more are entitled to
(often early) military pensions and additional financial and non-financial benefits
related to healthcare, taxation, housing, transport and employment (Gregson, 2000,
p. 3). In RS, the only men who are legally excluded from claiming compensation are
those who committed war crimes – but only if at the time they were fighting on the
‘enemy side’, that is against Serbs (Popić and Panjeta, 2010, p. 28). All other indicted
war criminals are still entitled to veteran payments. The only other combatants who
were initially excluded from the privileged citizen status were the veterans of the
Army of the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, since they did not secure any
recognition or autonomy in post-war BiH, but even that has been changed.22
Following the 2005 ruling of Bosnia’s Constitutional Court, they too have been
granted veteran rights (Ibid.).
Such a system of post-war compensation ensures that most men who fought
are rewarded for their assumed positive war contribution. On the other hand, it is
rather inconceivable for a woman to be a šehid for example. On the contrary, if
women are ever mentioned in the context of the Bosnian war, it is predominantly as
rape survivors, of which there could be between 20,000 and 50,000 (Amnesty
International, 2009, p. 5). However, few benefits or reparations are associated with
that status. In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a special status for rape
survivors was established only in 2006, prompted by a legal ruling. However, this is
not the case in Republika Srpska, where rape survivors are treated like any other
civilian victims of war, who all have to prove 60 per cent disability in order to be able
to claim any war-related payments. In contrast to that, war veterans need to prove
20 Interviewed by the author on 20 November 2012 in Sarajevo 21 Like in Croatia, this refers to previously active soldiers with minimum 20 per cent disability. 22 Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia existed between 1993 and 1995, proclaimed by the Bosnian
Muslim industrial magnate from the area, Fikret Abdić. The province cooperated with both Croat and
Serb forces against the central Bosnian government.
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only 20 per cent bodily damage in order to be eligible for payments (Šoštarić, 2012, p.
50-54). More frequently, women can claim war-related benefits only as wives or
daughters of BiH veterans, highlighting their status as dependents, and in practice
reaffirming the male status as a provider and head of the household.
Just as in Croatia, veterans here have been much more successful on drawing
on the state-sponsored war narratives to make claims on the state. Even where the
civilian victims of war or women have organised around the symbol of victim, the
importance of the citizen-soldier and politicians’ fear of unrest amongst former
combatants have prevented any major change to the system of compensation.
Veteran associations, many of which had been established as early as 1993, have
organised a number of protests every time their benefits have been under threat
(Bougarel, 2006, p. 482; Latal, 2009; Zuvela and Jelenek, 2010). The political
fragmentation along ethnic lines has actually propped up the system, since any time
one of the entities tries to address the benefits, its veterans compare themselves to
their counterparts across the entity boundary.23 However, the weakness of the state
has introduced one type of actor which has consistently challenged the veteran
associations: international institutions.
Ever since the end of the war, a number of large international organisations
have been involved in BiH either as donors or de facto administrators of the state.
Many of them, particularly the international financial institutions (IFIs), have pushed
an agenda of privatisation and liberalisation in support of economic growth. The IFIs
have insisted that BiH needs to regain international competitiveness through
domestic investment and the lowering of labour costs. Veteran benefits, as one of the
highest financial commitments of the state, have thus become their target. The World
Bank has calculated that the ‘non-contributory’ veteran benefits (contribution is
defined in financial terms) amounted to 2.44 per cent of total GDP in 2010 and took
up most of social assistance whilst having a minimal impact on the reduction of
poverty (World Bank, 2012, p. 36). As a result, there has been huge pressure from
many international institutions present in BiH to reduce these entitlements, or at
least target them better (according to need rather than category, but still reducing
overall spending). According to a senior employee of a large international
organisation in Sarajevo,24 the state is failing to send the ‘signal that the war is over,
and you need to start working, you need to start bringing income to your family’,
and that ‘the message that is given to these people is wrong, the message is that state
will take care of you, instead of the state will provide you with all sorts of
opportunities to blossom’ (by which he means employment). Whilst the IFIs may
lack legitimacy in the country, they have the power of the purse. The reduction of
privileged military pensions was one of the requirements set out by the IMF for its
23 Again, similarly to Croatia, the associations are connected to specific, in this case ethnic, political
parties and mobilised to push for more advantageous political solutions, taking a prominent public
role (Bojicic-Dzelilovic, 2004, p. 7). 24 Interviewed by the author on 19 November 2012 in Sarajevo.
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next loan and in order to receive it, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina passed
a law to that effect April 2013 (Sito-Sucic, 2013, p. n/a).
Yet the veterans are a very diverse group, and their expectations of post-war
lives vary too, as reflected by one Bosnian veteran (who wanted to remain
anonymous) interviewed by the author on 19 November 2012 in Sarajevo. The man
recalled a wartime conversation with a fellow combatant, in which he was expressing
his hopes for the war to finish soon in order to be able to return to his ‘normal’ life to
finish his studies and get a job. His interlocutor had a very different image of the
post-war life, however, saying that he was not fighting for Bosnia only to have to
work again in the future. Indeed, since the end of the war he has managed to finance
his life through a variety of veteran entitlements, despite having suffered no
disability from combat.
4.3 Serbia
The fact that serving the state as a soldier does not automatically translate into
special citizenship provisions is clearly demonstrated by the situation of former
combatants in Serbia. Whilst veterans in BiH and Croatia have been compensated for
their wartime services, in Serbia they are mostly unorganised and invisible.
According to Noa Treister from the Centre for Cultural Decontamination, which
organises workshops with veterans, in Serbia there could be between 400,000 and
800,000 war veterans.25 These estimates include the large numbers involved in
Kosovo, so the veterans of the 1991-1995 wars would be fewer. However, the reason
why there are no precise numbers is because the state still denies having been at war
throughout the 1990s (since such an admission would have legal repercussions for
war reparations, for instance), insisting any engagements as part of the Yugoslav
National Army were simply ‘manoeuvres’ within Serbia or conducted by volunteers
not related to the Serbian state.26 Of course, this stands in stark opposition to the
findings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as
well as private litigations in Serbia demonstrating forceful conscription in Yugoslavia
of Serbian men before their dispatch to Croatia (Opačić et al, 2006). However, it is not
only the state that would like to forget about these men but also the wider society, for
whom they are a symbol of the wars and the defeat in them, or potentially war
criminals (Grujić, 2006, p. 35).
This denial and a lack of a clear narrative of a legitimate war have translated
into a lack of mobilisation of the veterans. In fact, one could say that the identity of a
veteran has not been formed at all. When working with workers fighting for their
labour rights in a factory in Serbia, Treister was surprised to find out that half of
them had fought in the war, but none thought of themselves as veterans. However,
this has been changing recently, with more and more men self-identifying as
25 Interviewed by the author on 22 November 2012 in Belgrade. 26 Apart from the NATO bombing campaign of Serbia in 1999.
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veterans and organising around issues related to invalidity, unpaid military wages,
social assistance etc. A group of reservists drafted into the Yugoslav Army during
NATO intervention between March and June 1999 has even pursued the Serbian
state for the payments of per diem allowances in front of the European Court of
Human Rights. Of course, this is only possible because that conflict is recognised by
Serbia as a war that took place in its territory. The Court ruled in favour of the
applicants, though in February 2012, at the request of Serbia, the case was referred to
the Grand Chamber (Vučković and Others v. Serbia, 2012). The visibility of the case
has spurred others to organise in a similar way (Politika, 2013).27
5. Gendered contribution, gendered outcomes
It is not unusual to have large welfare systems in post-conflict societies, as often there
is a large number of people who have suffered enormously during the war and are in
greater need of state protection, for example due to disability or destruction of
livelihood. However, in this context the masculinisation of the war and the triumph
of the nationalist war narratives in Croatia and BiH have skewed post-war
compensation strongly towards certain categories of men.28 When we look at war-
related entitlements in both of these countries, it becomes very apparent how many
of them are tied to the privileged status of citizen-soldier, defining overall post-war
social citizenship.
Payments given to the veterans are not based solely on their needs due to, for
example, invalidity since that would not be reason enough to create a differentiated
status for veteran invalids as compared to any other invalids. However, this is
currently the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with veteran invalids receiving higher
payments than any others, even for the same level of disability (World Bank, 2012).
For example, in 2009 a civilian with 100 per cent invalidity would receive a monthly
payment of BAM375 in RS and BAM514 in FBiH, as compared to BAM650 and
BAM734 respectively in the case of a military invalid (Popić and Panjeta, 2010).
Moreover, as mentioned earlier, civilian invalids in BiH need to demonstrate much
higher levels of disability (60 per cent as opposed to 20 per cent for military invalids)
to gain access to benefits in the first place.
If, on the other hand, these entitlements are a form of compensation (for
exposing these men to danger), then the civilian victims of war should surely be
treated equally. After all, as highlighted by the anthropologist Ivana Maček, in
besieged Sarajevo, ‘combatants and civilians were largely confronted with the same
dangers, the same material difficulties, and the same moral dilemmas' (in Bougarel,
2006, p. 483). However, a distinction is made between these two groups, with
military war victims – those who were active members of the armed forces –
27 See also the roundtable organised by the Belgrade-based Centre for Cultural Decontamination
(2011), entitled Imenovati TO ratom [Naming IT war]. 28 This analysis does not apply to Serbia since, as detailed earlier, it offers very limited post-war
compensation.
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receiving more money. As highlighted by Grujić,29 in all three states, civilian war
victims do not enjoy the same status or associated benefits as military war victims –
the veterans (see also Popić and Panjeta, 2010). As a result, in BiH veteran benefits
amounted to 2.4 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2010, as compared 1.5 per cent of
GDP spent on civilian benefits (including those not related to the war) (World Bank,
2012, p. 36).30
Duties and activities associated with militarism, which in this context is
attached to men, are rewarded. This is frequently justified on the basis of the special
contribution by the soldiers. There seems to be an implicit assumption that if a man
spent that time with a gun in his hand, this was an act for the benefit of state or
society. Žunec, for instance, argues that this preparedness to sacrifice one’s life for
the community is essentially priceless, and cannot be compensated (2006, p. 35). Yet
the idea of soldier sacrifice can be quite romanticised, considering that in this
particular war (as perhaps in many others), enlisting offered some soldiers chances of
empowerment and enrichment through looting, smuggling and other criminal
activities such as rape. Criminal but also social networks established during the war
also determined access to jobs, positions and connections in the post-war period.
Importantly, this approach automatically creates an unequal system of
citizenship rights and duties, since women often could not volunteer (or were
restricted in doing so), and so would never be able to receive the same sort of
recognition. At the same time, their potential sacrifices as doctors, nurses and
reporters at the front have not been equally rewarded. Women are strongly
disadvantaged in a post-war social citizenship system dominated so much by the
figure of citizen-soldiers. They are more likely to be civilian rather than military
victims of war and thus receive less money as individuals and overall.31 Moreover,
with such a huge chunk of state resources devoted to veteran benefits, other areas of
social welfare suffer. Since women more often rely on welfare as those in higher risk
of poverty (due to lower employment, lower wages, lower pensions or as single
mothers), they are inherently affected.
6. Conclusion
In this paper I have considered the relationship between citizenship, gender and war.
In many wars of the last two centuries, an expansion of rights frequently followed a
conflict, although that process often did not proceed uniformly or equally. Existing
rights could be extended to include minorities and social classes which had
contributed to war victory, and which were previously excluded from full
29 Interviewed by the author on 23 November 2012 in Belgrade. 30 Out of that, 0.8 per cent of GDP was spent on civilian disabled and civilian victims of war and
between 0.6 and 0.7 per cent of GDP devoted to last-resort social assistance for the poor, family and
child protection benefits, ad hoc one-time financial assistance (World Bank, 2012, p. 37). 31 The lack of statistics regarding the division of beneficiaries of both military and civilian benefits by
gender is illustrative of the overall gender-blindness of the post-war compensation system.
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citizenship. Alternatively, new rights could also be made available exclusively to
veterans. Contribution in times of war could be sometimes negotiated to include
non-military contributors, such as women, enabling them to claim rights. Lastly,
wars could result in a more radical overhaul of citizenship, adding new social
citizenship rights for the entire population.
The analysis of post-war compensation in BiH, Croatia and Serbia has
revealed highly varied and gendered outcomes for social citizenship. The
fragmentation of Yugoslavia and its armies has resulted in fragmented and contested
war narratives which have influenced the ability of former combatants to build a
coherent veteran identity and make claims to compensation based on it. In Croatia
and in both entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the war is frequently seen as a
justified defence against the aggressor, resulting in a legitimate identity of ‘veteran as
defender’ and a relatively generous system of benefits for them. In Serbia, a
dissonance exists between the former combatants who maintain they fulfilled their
duty protecting either Yugoslavia or the Serbian nation, and the government which
pretends Serbia was never involved in the war. This means that soldiers who came
from Serbia proper – even those who were forcefully conscripted – do not have a
way to seek compensation for their military service. This differentiation between the
different groups of war veterans is important, as all too frequently a simple equation
has been posited between nationalism, militarism and male interests (Bracewell,
2000). Here we can see that not all men benefit equally from war, and that the status
of citizen-soldier, and the duties and rights of male citizenship, can be hugely
contested.
However, if any expansion of citizenship did occur in these states, then it was
that predominantly associated with male citizenship and the figure of citizen-soldier.
As I demonstrated throughout this paper, this war was masculinised in both
discourse and practice, with women not only mostly not participating in combat, but
also unable to claim rights based on other roles they have played. Norms of
masculinity still determine what it means to be a good citizen, continuing to
condition men’s behaviour but also structuring a system of state benefits and
entitlements privileging duties, actions and activities usually associated with men.
Former combatants from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia have not only been
compensated for their wartime losses; they have also been rewarded simply for their
participation in war, with a positive assumption attached to that military
participation.
These varied outcomes also tell us a fair deal about the general features of
citizenship regimes across the three states: Croatia’s ethnocentrism, Bosnia’s
fragmentation and Serbia’s ambiguity. Croatia’s generous reward of its citizen-
soldiers reaffirms the state-sponsored narrative about the ‘Homeland War’ as the
grounding myth of the Croatian nation-state. However, the fact that Croats resident
in BiH who have fought either in the Croatian Army in Croatia or in the Croatian
militias in BiH can be rewarded with Croatian citizenship and veteran benefits paid
by the Croatian state demonstrates the central role of ethnicity in its citizenship
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regime. In BiH, the competing war narratives and veteran compensation schemes
operating in the two entities testify to the divided and ethnicised nature of its
citizenship. In Serbia, on the other hand, the lack of any policies towards the veterans
points to the competing narratives about its statehood and its boundaries.
Research presented here also points to the potential future developments of
social citizenship in the region. The weakness of all three states in the face of global
economic competition has increasingly put pressure even on the revered model of
citizen-soldier. Because there has been no society-wide expansion of social
citizenship following the Yugoslav Wars, in times of indebtedness and austerity,
there is a greater competition for state resources and contestations of the current
schemes of redistribution. The pressure to contribute economically is very much
present, since, as Bauman argues, in today's time of liquid modernity, people who
are not productive are 'flawed consumers'; they are redundant, and the community
might not want to shoulder their burden (2005, p. 18). The perfect citizen is no longer
the soldier-citizen but the working and consuming citizen. The implications of this
statement go much beyond the former Yugoslavia. In the age of corporate soldiers
and wars fought by drones, there is a risk that states stop caring about the quality of
their ‘stock’, adding yet another reason to shed state responsibility for their
populations.
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